West Ham United's unpopular former owner, Straumur, has reduced its shareholding in the club in favour of another unpopular former owner. Terry Brown, the former chairman whose latter years at the club were characterised by the Brown Out campaign, is among the minority investors that have bought 3.8% of the club. That takes the equity interest of Straumur and its fellow Icelandic-bank shareholders, through the special-purpose investment vehicle CB Holding, down to 35% from 40%. The co-chairmen, David Sullivan and David Gold, below, each hold the two remaining stakes of 30.6%. The dealings seemingly cost £2m. And if so then Brown has become involved again for less than half the price at which he sold out in 2006, when he netted more than £30m in the fateful deal with Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson.

Trap1 wrote:Long gone are the days when a succesful local businessman could buy his local club in the top flight English Premier League. The fact is that most PL clubs are at least £100 million to buy and that doesn't include the millions of investment that need to follow in terms of transfers, wages and infrastructure in order to compete in the worlds richest football league.